If you lived in the San Francisco Bay Area just after the dot.com bubble burst, you may or may not remember Rust Belt Music, an alt-country-flavored indie rock band comprised of Midwest-to-California transplants. RBM, as they were affectionately called by many of their fans, boasted a catalogue of keyboard- and guitar-driven songs. It was against this backdrop that frontman John Lindenbaum explored the effects of stagnating industry on the citizens of the Midwest and Northeast, then shifted this perspective westward to write songs about the urban underbelly of the Bay Area and its denizens. Oh, and speaking of The Lonesome Crowded West–back in the day, RBM also did a pretty mean cover of Modest Mouse’s “Trailer Trash” and were lucky enough to have a cadre of fans who screamed “FAKES!” at all the appropriate moments.

Performing with artists such as Rogue Wave, John Guilt, and Hudson Bell, Rust Belt Music were veterans at SF venues like the Hotel Utah Saloon, The Makeout Room, and Edinburgh Castle, also making appearances at Cafe du Nord and San Francisco’s annual Noise Pop festival. The band went through several lineup changes and are currently on hiatus (though a full-length project, The Company Town, was released last year). But The Lonelyhearts, the side project of Lindenbaum and RBM keyboardist Andre Perry, are recording new songs and planning a tour, despite the fact that Lindenbaum has long since moved to the opposite side of San Francisco Bay and Perry has moved far further east to attend graduate school at the University of Iowa.

A brief discography: in 2004 The Lonelyhearts released a four-song EP, Make Yourself at Home, that finally gave a home to Lindenbaum’s ballad “absinthe/resolution” (I shit you not, that’s the actual song title, so go listen to it while you mix some sugar with the green stuff)… and, let me tell you that, as far as my favorite modern-day New Year’s songs go, “absinthe/resolution” is second only to The Dismemberment Plan’s “The Ice of Boston”). A full-length album, Dispatch, followed in 2005.

The Lonelyhearts have departed from Rust Belt Music’s catalogue into songs filled with larger amounts of space, both musically and thematically. RBM’s frenetic organ riffs have slowed into more meditative piano ballads, while the industrial-slum settings of Lindenbaum’s earlier songs with RBM have opened up into lonely swathes of prairie and desert. But the change that occurs in terms of vocals is perhaps the most striking. Unlike RBM, which had Lindenbaum routinely singing lead and Perry or original keyboardist Micah Weinberg providing occasional harmony, The Lonelyhearts find Lindenbaum and Perry sharing singing duties. Perry performs lead vox on several tracks of Dispatch; on others, his accentuated, chillingly clear vocals layer well with Lindenbaum’s huskier, increasingly howling drawl.

If you want to check their songs out, some downloads are available here. And if you’d like to get to know them a little better first, here be the interview:

1. When historians listen to your most recent CD 1000 years from now, what will they say?

Andre: They will laugh and say, “These guys made records 2000 miles away from each other and they could only get this good? Damn, we track basics on Venus while the rest of the band is laying down overdubs on Jupiter and we sound at least 900% better than the Lonelyhearts!” Actually I’m not sure but won’t the sun have exploded in 1000 years?

John: There won’t be people in 1000 years. But they would probably say something along the lines of “these guys sound awfully sad considering the plague hadn’t even started yet.”

2. If you could play a show with any band/musician living or dead, whom would you pick and why?

John: Andre Perry, because we are in the same band. Drive-By Truckers, because their live show is tremendous. Lifter/Puller, because I bet it would be fun.

Andre: Well, most of the bands I like the most wouldn’t have any business adding me to their lineup. But… I do think I could sing killer backing vocals and play second keyboard for the Walkmen. I believe I could rock some dirty-house keyboards in LCD Soundsystem or !!! as well.

3. What is the strangest band-related dream (one of) you have had?

Andre: I only dream about books I should be awake and reading for school.

John: I had a dream a few weeks ago that I was talking to superstarcastic journalist Christine Fort and we did this interview live. I also frequently dream that we play but I don’t know any of the songs. Not so strange, considering how bad my memory is. I also had a dream in which Latrell Sprewell was my best friend

4. What do your fans look like?

Andre: Like friends.

John: Suspiciously similar to our friends.

5. What bullshit do you run into at most every show that makes you think “man, this bullshit again?”

Andre: We don’t encounter bullshit at every show. But there will be one show out of, say, ten where the sound engineering makes the experience less enjoyable than taking the GRE. L.A. killed my will to live on this last tour. I still have faith in Los Angeles so we’ll be back in 2007 to rectify our deep bonds with Southern California.

John: It’s been so long since we played a live show that any such bullshit seems distant. I suppose trying to sing in tune (hard enough for us as is) while facing a wall of feedback is not the best experience. Driving home on the Bay Bridge when they’ve closed all but one lane is also not the greatest. Really, I just miss playing shows. I would even relish carrying drums at 3 a.m. on a work night.

Bonus question: What do you miss most (or least) about living in San Francisco?

John: I miss the urban filth (including yuppies, hipsters, and urine) the least. As for what I miss the most, probably using SF as a pedestrian city. Now I have to drive in and parking is unpleasant. There’s something about walking around a city at night - the excitement of the urban fabric or somesuch nonsense.

Andre: Hmmm… Iowa City is pretty rad. But I miss good/cheap Indian food as well as Central American and Mexican food. I don’t miss expensive drinks.

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